  Barry jumped from the sled and took out the keys while the others were dismounting from the sleighs. Tim and Mac lifted a large oil can from the vehicle they had come in. The others stood in the snow and stamped their feet, glad to move about once more after sitting so long. Coach Jordan helped some of the boys tie the horses to the back-porch rail. The sun had gone down in an angry red haze, and the darkness was spreading rapidly, accompanied by a cold that nipped and penetrated them. Although they knew that the lodge would be cold, the visitors were glad to follow Barry and the twins inside. Kent made a quick trip around the big log building to see if everything was all right, and he returned satisfied. The twins lighted the lamps that were already in the big living room, and in the meantime Barry collected some wood, soaked it with oil, and touched the flame of a match to it. After the flames were leaping up the chimney he got some coal and put it on the burning wood. The room began to get warm slowly. The girls and boys roamed around admiring the place, and at last they began to take off coats and hats as the room warmed up. From the living room Kent and Barry moved into the two bedrooms and lighted fires in them, so that they would be able to stay there all night without discomfort. Soon the grates in those rooms were glowing and the lodge had become comfortable. They decided to do their cooking in the kitchen, and accordingly a fire was kindled in the big range there. This was something more of a task because the stove was rusty and clogged with ashes and tin cans, left by some careless and untidy campers. The boys cleaned the stove out, and after this was done, the fire burned well. Some of them favored using the dining room, but the majority vote was that they eat in the living room, by the light and warmth of the large grate there. All of them were hungry, and so the girls took charge of the supper preparation under the expert leadership of Mrs. Jordan. The boys sat in the living room with the coach and chatted about winter sports. In a very short time the delightful smell of things cooking reached them. The coach smiled as he heard the murmurs of appreciation. “That’s a tempting smell, boys,” he said. “This Lake Arrowtip air is a great hunger-producing tonic!” “We found it that way,” Tim grinned. Charlie was seldom able to sit still long at a time, and he bounded off to the kitchen, followed by the faithful Castor Oil. Before long he was back, rigged out in an apron and a paper hat, obviously in the capacity of a waiter. Disregarding the jokes of the boys, he began to set things in order for supper. It seemed to the hungry boys that the meal was a long time coming, but the girls declared with spirit that it hadn’t taken much time except to those who sat around waiting for it. The time finally came when they were all sitting close to the fire eating steak and potatoes, talking and enjoying themselves. All lamps had been put out, and only the red glow of the fire illuminated the room. But by this time the fire was a solid mass of glowing coals, and a sufficient light was rendered for all. Their shadows clustered on the wall back of them. “And you four boys camped here for a few days, just like this?” a senior girl asked the four chums. “Wasn’t it delightful?” “We enjoyed it,” Kent nodded. “We weren’t here all the time, though. At first we camped over in that smaller cabin that you could see as we drove up.” “What made you leave it?” Mrs. Jordan asked. This was getting close to things that the boys did not want to reveal, but before Kent could answer, Barry broke in. “That little cabin was cold, and the floor was hard to sleep on,” he said. “Then one night a limb dropped on the roof and scared us quite a bit, so we decided to move in here. Tim and Mac did the moving, and Kent and I got lost in a storm that day.” “But what about all the ghost stories we hear?” another girl asked. “Is there a ghost around?” “Pretty cold for a ghost,” Barry smiled. “We’ve been here two hours or more and haven’t heard anything yet.” “I hope we don’t!” said another girl, looking around the room uneasily. “It will be all right,” Charlie Black assured her. “We’ll let Castor Oil loose all night and he’ll sic the ghost. He’s a fine sic-er!” “The spook will run if he ever finds out the dog’s name!” said Mac, amid a general laugh. “Coach, how about telling us a good ghost story tonight?” Bill Jefferson asked. “The atmosphere is just right.” “The atmosphere is all right,” the athletic instructor smiled. “But I’m afraid of some nerves around here. I know a ghost story wouldn’t bother the boys, but I don’t want to upset the girls.” But the girls themselves begged him to tell at least one after the meal was over, and at length he agreed to do so. Coach Jordan was a good story teller, and many times he had spun some lively yarns while on overnight hikes with the boys of Cloverfield. He excelled in creepy mystery stories, and the young people looked forward with eager anticipation to a good one after supper. “How about some boy volunteers to dry dishes?” Pearl asked, as they got up to carry plates back to the kitchen. “We did all the work of preparing supper. I know that most of you boys camp out, so you must know how to wash and dry dishes!” “How about letting Castor Oil lick all the plates and then drying them over the stove?” Charlie shouted, but an indignant chorus of voices answered him, and he went off chuckling. “All right, the men will take charge of the kitchen from now on,” cried Coach Jordan. “No ladies allowed out there except to bring your plates.” “That’s the spirit!” commended Ruth Carrier, the leader among the high-school girls. “We’ll start to toast some marshmallows for you.” “Agreeable all around,” Kent nodded, and the boys took over the kitchen work, while the girls went back to the living room to toast the marshmallows. Mr. Jordan and Kent did the washing, and the other boys dried the dishes. After a time they looked around for a pail to put scraps in, but there was none in the kitchen. Barry seized a lantern. “I think I remember seeing one in the tool house,” he said, as he opened the back door. “I’ll be right back.” The horses tied to the rail of the porch moved restlessly as he passed by them on his way across the board platform. Fodder had been brought for them, and as soon as the dishes were dried the boys planned to move the horses to a big shed back of the lodge which served as a combination barn and garage. Barry arrived at the tool house and went inside, peering around in the feeble light from the lamp. At the far end of the place he saw a tin can. “There it is. I thought I remembered seeing it in here. This is just—— Ouch!” He had tripped on something, and he flashed the light down to see what it was. He was close beside the bale of hay that stood there, and as he examined the floor he saw that it was slightly raised. This interested him, and he put his hand down and pulled the raised boards toward him. To his surprise several of them came up a few inches. “What the dickens is this? Why——” With a single motion of his arm he pushed the bale of hay aside and stared at the floor. A long trapdoor was revealed, and with trembling fingers he raised it, looking down into a deep well of darkness. A pair of wooden stairs ran down to the floor of a passage. “An underground passage!” Barry breathed. “Now I’m beginning to see a few things!” For several seconds he stood staring down into the tunnel, remembering how the black shadow had disappeared from the interior of the shed. Many conflicting thoughts crowded his mind, and his impulse was to go down and explore the passageway. But the severe cold made him think better of it, and, closing the trap and replacing the hay, he picked up the tin container he had come to get and went back to the lodge. “I’ll get my hat and coat on and get some of the boys to go with me,” he thought, as he opened the kitchen door and went in. Coach Jordan and his helpers were nearly finished. Barry left the can and went into the living room, picking up his coat and hat. Kent and the twins were not around at the time, and so Barry slipped out of the front door alone. His chums were in the bedroom attending to the fire there. “I’ll just take a peek along that corridor myself,” he decided, feeling in his pocket for his flashlight and noting with satisfaction that it was there. “Then maybe I’ll take the whole crowd for a tour of it, providing it is safe to do so!” Arriving once more in the tool house, he moved the bale of hay aside and raised the trapdoor, listening keenly before making a descent into the newly found passage. No sound came to him as he stood in perfect silence, and at last, thinking that it was safe to proceed, he turned on the beam of his light and carefully walked down the steps. There were seven steps, and when he reached the bottom he turned the light down the tunnel. He had closed the door of the opening and now stood alone under the earth. The passage was long and sloped away farther than the shaft of light would reveal. With a rapidly beating heart he began to advance, walking slowly and quietly, his eyes alert and his nerves drawn tight. The thought came to him that he was drawing farther and farther away from his companions and that he ought to go back and get some of them, but the impulse to go on was too strong, and he kept advancing. The tunnel was well made. He was able to walk upright and had to bend low only at one place where a tree root broke through and crossed the underground way. It was a dry place and not very cold. The sides of the tunnel had been carefully cut, and it seemed to him that it had been built for some definite purpose. “But what can it be for?” he wondered. “Does Mrs. Morganson know that it is here? Maybe I’ll know more about it all when I get to the end.” The end was near. He could see some boards before him, and a few moments later he stopped, playing the beam of the light against the boards that closed the tunnel. They seemed to be fairly new ones, and they simply fitted into the soil. He put out his hand to push against them and then thought better of it, pausing to listen once more, his flashlight out. The blackness seemed to crush in on him. “No telling what is on the other side of that boarding. If I can’t push it open, I’ll go back and get the others.” No sound came to him, and so he again turned on the light and then pushed against the partition. To his astonishment it turned outward like a door, and his light showed him the interior of a small shed. Stepping through and closing the boards after him, he was surprised to see that it was on hinges and formed part of the wall of the small building in which he found himself. There were two windows and a door to the place, but otherwise the interior was perfectly bare. A conviction came to him. “By George, this is the quarry shed where Kent and I saw the man with the black gloves go in! No wonder no one answered our knocks and kicks. The man had gone up the tunnel to the lodge, and when we got over that way, we saw him run into the tool house! I’m learning so much that it makes me dizzy!” He opened the door of the quarry shed and stepped out. The wind, coming in from a break in the rock wall, had swept the snow away from the door, and the ground was hard and the snow at that particular place hard-packed. He closed the door and looked around. It was much the same as it had been the night he and Kent had stood there demanding shelter, except that the snow was not driving. He wondered where the black shadow came from, and he began to wander toward the far end of the quarry. For a while he did not use his light, and it was not until he was at the very base of the quarry wall that he flashed the light around. There was nothing to be seen. “No house or anything down at this end,” he reflected, turning. “I’d better go the other way.” Then his eyes fell on a figure crossing the bowl of the quarry, and instinctively he crouched down. It was the same black-clothed figure that they had seen once before, and the man went boldly into the quarry shed. Barry watched him with wildly beating heart. “There he goes now!” he breathed. “On his way to the lodge to start something, I’ll bet! And as sure as I’m a foot high, he’ll discover that someone has been in his tunnel! Then what will happen?” |
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